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Friday, September 25

Why do I need a passport to walk this earth?

Michael Franti & Spearhead singing "Hello Bonjour"

I dont need a passport
to walk on this earth,
Anywhere I go cause I was made of this earth
Im born of this earth,
I breath of this earth,
and even with the pain I believe in this earth, So
I wake Up every mornin and Im steppin on the floor,
I wake up every mornin and Im stepping out the door
I got faith in the sky,
faith in the one,
faith in the people rockin underneath the sun
Cause every bit of land is a holy land and
every drop of water is a holy water and
every single child is a son or a daughter of the one
Earth mama and the one Earth papa, So
dont tell a man that he cant come here cause he got
brown eyes and a wavy kind of hair, And
dont tell a woman that she cant go there because she
prays a little different to a God up there
You say youre a Christian
cause God made you
you say youre a Muslim
cause god made you
You say youre a Hindu and the next man a Jew
Then we all kill each other
cause God told us to NAH!

Oh well, I know I can't walk this earth until I get one, so I guess I'll just do what I have to do. Now that this kids are old enough to fend for themselves, I want to start traveling -- you know -- sneak away someday soon when I have a few extra (worthless) dollars on hand. I'm 50 years old and never go anywhere but Cape Cod. It's time I stepped out and saw this beautiful world before I leave it.

I was unaware that all new US passports now contain radio frequency ID chips. Did we ever blog about this?

So, does this mean I may never walk alone again? For safety reasons, I know how important it is for someone to know where you are at all times. For this reason, we tell the people who need to know, where and when we go somewhere (family & friends). It's nobody else's business where I roam.

What do you think about this idea?

Do you think it would work?

I came across the suggestion over at Wired:

All passports issued by the US State Department after January 1 will have always-on radio frequency identification chips, making it easy for officials – and hackers – to grab your personal stats. Getting paranoid about strangers slurping up your identity? Here’s what you can do about it. But be careful – tampering with a passport is punishable by 25 years in prison. Not to mention the “special” customs search, with rubber gloves. Bon voyage!
1) RFID-tagged passports have a distinctive logo on the front cover; the chip is embedded in the back.

2) Sorry, “accidentally” leaving your passport in the jeans you just put in the washer won’t work. You’re more likely to ruin the passport itself than the chip.

3) Forget about nuking it in the microwave – the chip could burst into flames, leaving telltale scorch marks. Besides, have you ever smelled burnt passport?

4) The best approach? Hammer time. Hitting the chip with a blunt, hard object should disable it. A nonworking RFID doesn’t invalidate the passport, so you can still use it.